After my parents went home, we took a weekend trip to Utah for a family wedding. We also got to visit the Pralls. We loved seeing family and the kids had a great time. Doug got to be a groomsman in the wedding and he gave a great toast and had a lot of fun.
Toward the end of May, it really started feeling like summer! Our neighborhood pool opened, and we also got out the backyard unicorn pool, which the kids have loved.
For Memorial Day, we went out to Tyler State Park with some friends. We swam in the lake and had a potluck lunch. I had a major planning fail and didn't bring swimsuits! I'd assumed that the lake would have a shore, and that the kids would just wade out into it rather than actually swimming. Well, the lake was so high that it went all the way to the sidewalk, and there was no shore to speak of. It was more like a swimming pool. Thankfully, the park had a store nearby and we found swimsuits for us all. It was worth it! Rhonda had so much fun that she didn't want to leave. Sierra didn't really swim (we didn't have a swim diaper for her), but she had a blast running around.
May Cookies! I got to do three different cookies in May:
May Books!
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman. I really liked this book about marriage and it made me really grateful for the marriage I have.
All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know about Getting and Spending by Laura Vanderkam. I was actually looking for a different book by Vanderkam at the library, but this was the only one they had and it piqued my interest. I liked the way it challenged the advice commonly given by finance experts. This book doesn't really give specific advice; it just offers different ways of looking at money in our lives.
Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind by Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire. I didn't enjoy this one much, although I did end up finishing it because it was so short, and I kept expecting it to get better. (The page count you see on Goodreads is misleading; a vast number of pages at the end were dedicated to the list of references. The page count of actual content was under 200.) It took me weeks to finish it, though. I couldn't quite figure out why the book was so boring, but I think I just don't like creativity being analyzed down into discrete categories of the "kind of person" who is creative. Much of the information wasn't really applicable to a creative person. Some of the chapters were just about the kinds of personalities that creative people tend to have--but you can't just change your personality to try to be more creative. Even that does sound like it would be interesting, but it just wasn't. I personally prefer a more mystical approach to creativity, because I think creativity is mystical. As much as these writers tried to convince me that they have creativity down to a science, I don't think modern science understands creativity nearly as much as these authors seem to think.
Emma by Jane Austen. I haven't read this book in years, and I was delighted to find that I still loved it even upon re-reading. However, I was more uncomfortable with certain things. I'm looking forward to discussing this with my book club next month.
No Doubt About It by Sheri Dew. I think Sheri Dew is such an amazing, inspiring person and I loved this book.
The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding by Jennifer Robson. This novel about the women who embroidered Elizabeth II's wedding dress is just as wonderful as I hoped it would be. It was also more serious than the subtitle would suggest; it is, after all, a post-World War II novel. But don't let that deter you! It was a great story. However, it is a novel--none of the main characters are based on real people, mainly because we know next to nothing about the real women who embroidered the dress.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. I've been meaning to read this book for years and I absolutely loved it. That said, I'm not sure everyone would enjoy it. The story is very sad (for good reason). At times, the culture that Hurston is writing about is hard to understand. But it really made me think about our country and its past. I read it on paper, but if I would recommend to most people to try an audio version. Hurston writes all the dialogue in a strong dialect which was hard for me to get used to reading with my eyes.
Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl. I love Ruth Reichl and was eagerly anticipating this memoir of her years as the editor in chief of Gourmet magazine. This was such a fascinating read about the way she first completely revamped the magazine, then tried to save it in its final years. Reichl is an amazing writer and the way she tells this story makes me wish very badly that Gourmet were still around and I could subscribe to it. I think I want to be Ruth Reichl when I grow up.
This was a great reading month for me! All the great books I was reading kept up my momentum and I read a lot more than I usually do. Here's hoping I keep up the streak!
I saw Their Eyes Were Watching God randomly at the library yesterday and grabbed it! Thanks for the recommendation.
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